Culture Bound Syndrome Research Paper

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Culture-Bound Syndromes Culture-bound syndromes can be defined as certain syndromes that appear to occur only in some cultures. Culture-bound syndrome was first recognized nearly sixty years ago when doctors began to notice that certain psychiatric syndromes are confined to specific cultures. In people diagnosed with this syndrome there seems to be no biochemical or structural alterations of body organs or functions and the disease does not seem to be recognized in any other culture. This syndrome has always been a difficult one to define because of the fact that many cultures have different perspectives of what is to be considered normal and abnormal. The DSM-5 provides guidelines for considering the possibility of a cultural-bound issue, however the guidelines provided are still not clear enough to determine what is considered to be healthy and unhealthy due to the variations of all the cultures. Another factor that may contribute to culture-bound syndromes have to do with things such as a toxic environment. Early researches always thought that culture-bound syndromes was caused by factors such as a toxic environment. They believed that the syndrome was …show more content…
In Western countries anorexia has a very high rate of diagnoses compared to the numbers in non western countries which has lead researchers to label anorexia as a culture-bound syndrome predominantly affecting the western area. It is important to understand and compare the different perspectives of those who are in the west and those who are not. Studies show that many people in the western countries feel a need to be thin in order to be beautiful or perfect. In western culture when you see a celebrity they are often perceived as perfect and appear thin or in really good shape. Once again a culture’s ideas and norms continues to affect the health both physically and mentally of those involved in